STATE COLLEGE — (12-1) La Salle lost to (3-1) Hempfield, 3-2, in the PIAA-6A state championship game Thursday evening at Penn State University’s Medlar Field at Lubrano Park. The Explorers (24-4) battled back from a three-run deficit to get within one. Andrew Bogansky led off the bottom of the seventh with a double and Antonio Astolfi laid down a sacrifice bunt to put the tying run on third. Hempfield pitcher Brody Gebhard ended the game with a pair of strikeouts. Gebhard threw a complete game, striking out seven batters to one walk and allowing two runs on five hits. The Black Knights (2 ..read more

CHESTER — Welcome to summer in MLS, where the first order of business is detailing which chunks of your roster are unavailable on any given matchday. When it’s Inter Miami coming to town, as the Union face Saturday night, it’s a tad more pronounced. When the Eastern Conference leaders roll into Subaru Park, the team will be without Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez, readying for Copa America with Argentina and Uruguay, respectively. Add Matias Rojas of Paraguay and David Ruiz of Honduras to that list, too. That counters the Union’s absences to international duty: Jose Martinez, Daniel Gazdag, Damio ..read more

By MARY CLARE JALONICK (Associated Press) Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin says his committee has uncovered at least three additional trips given to Justice Clarence Thomas by GOP megadonor Harlan Crow as part of the panel’s ethics investigation into the Supreme Court. Durbin, D-Ill., said Thursday the committee obtained information from Crow that Thomas took three trips, and at least six flights, on Crow’s private jet in 2017, 2019 and 2021. The panel also found evidence of private jet travel during trips to Indonesia and California that Thomas recently disclosed in an amendmen ..read more

By SEUNG MIN KIM and STEPHEN GROVES (Associated Press) WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden will host a White House event next week celebrating an Obama-era directive that offered deportation protections for young undocumented immigrants, as his own administration prepares potential new benefits for others without legal status but with long-standing ties in the United States. White House officials are closing in on a plan that would tap Biden’s executive powers to shield spouses of U.S. citizens without legal status from deportation, offer them work permits and ease their path toward permanen ..read more

By DEVI SHASTRI (AP Health Writer) The U.S. Food and Drug Administration took more than 15 months to act on a whistleblower complaint it received about conditions at an Abbott Nutrition factory that was at the center of a nationwide shortage of infant formula, a new audit shows. The Department of Labor received the email and three days later forwarded it to an FDA address specifically for such complaints. But one of several staff members charged with managing the FDA inbox at the time “inadvertently archived” the email in February 2021, and it wasn’t found until a reporter requested it in June ..read more

Holly D. Johnson | (TNS) Bankrate While I find value in all types of travel — including adventure and sightseeing trips all over the world — I try to plan family vacations that are both relaxing and fun. With two teen girls to keep happy and entertained, my partner and I don’t want to over-plan or try to do too much on vacation. Instead, we like to sit back and relax, enjoy a week (or longer) without cooking or cleaning and spend time together chatting, playing games and basking in the sun. All-inclusive resorts sometimes make their way into our travel plans, but my true pr ..read more

NORRISTOWN — The fate of a Pottstown man accused of fatally shooting an unarmed Chester County man with whom he had an angry exchange during a child custody transfer is in the hands of a jury. Kevin Maurice Morgan, 35, of the 500 block of May Street, showed no outward emotion on Thursday as testimony wrapped up at his trial at which he’s charged with first- and third-degree murder, voluntary manslaughter, possessing an instrument of crime, recklessly endangering other persons and endangering the welfare of children in connection with the alleged 7:13 p.m. June 27, 2023, fatal shooting of Derek ..read more

Curt Gowdy, Dick Enberg, Pat Summerall, John Facenda, Jack Buck, John Madden … Merrill Reese. Reese, the voice of the Eagles, will be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in August as the 2024 winner of the Pete Rozelle Radio-Television Award, joining the above luminaries. Approaching his 48th year as the play-by-play man of the Eagles, Reese’s signature call of “It’s GOOOODD” after field goals has sent the team’s fans into a frenzy. It all began for Reese, 81, calling high school football games at WPAZ radio in Pottstown. From there he went to WBCB Radio in Levittown, where he is co-ow ..read more

After a hurricane-delayed landing into New York City a few years ago, Brett Battles had just 10 minutes to make his connecting flight to Zurich. And that’s when the novelist saw a message from his literary agent: Call me. But Battles didn’t have a moment to spare, making it on the plane as the doors closed behind him.  “I couldn’t even make the call; I had zero time,” says Battles during a Zoom interview. “Once I got to Europe, I had to wait another six hours because now she was asleep.”  Battles, a novelist with more than 40 books to his credit, including his Jonathan Quinn thriller ..read more

By SCOTT SONNER and MORGAN LEE (Associated Press) Dozens of hikers say they fell ill during trips to a popular Arizona tourist destination that features towering blue-green waterfalls deep in a gorge neighboring Grand Canyon National Park. Madelyn Melchiors, a 32-year-old veterinarian from Kingman, Arizona, said she was vomiting severely Monday evening and had a fever that endured for days after camping on the Havasupai reservation. She eventually hiked out to her car in a weakened state through stiflingly hot weather and was thankful that her pack could be transported up a winding trail sever ..read more